moonslav59

IMO, it is very uncommon to have 33 new players added to the 40 man roster added after Feb 2020. Maybe no so uncommon to see 29 added after the 2020 season. It was nearly a total rebuild, and I'm not even talking about dozens of players who came and went as bridge players to the next piece in the rebuild. Almost every trade, even many at the deadline, involved us getting prospects. Even the Ottavino trade was made to get German. I still swear the JBJ trade was ab out the prospects. The Beni trade involved 4 prospects. The Betts trade- 2. The deadline deals, this year involved gaining 4 prospects. From the end of 2019 until the Story signing, we were in rebuild mode. Not tear down everything for a 5-6 year rebuild plan, but "rebuild" is the correct term, IMO.

No, but they were. We have like 5-6 guys on the 40 that were on it in 2019, and some may be gone, soon.

Certainly, the Astros tried harder to improve their pen than we did. I think Bloom did just as good, at the deadline, as HOU did.

Rebuilds usually entail shorter term or "bridge" contracts, but I expect to start seeing more deals like Story's, this winter.

I seriously doubt they told Bloom not to worry about the budget. I'm pretty sure they never want to go over the tax line 3 years in a row. The pattern seems to show they stay near the line and try to avoid consecutive years over the line, but to answer your question, nobody really knows for sure.

Looking forward to turkey sandwiches and all the great sides. The pie is almost gone!

Montero pitched just 6 innings for HOU in 2021. Graveman did okay in 23 IP (3.60 FIP but 1.391 WHIP) Maton did not help: 25 IP w 4.97 ERA and 1.618 WHIP & 4.08 FIP Again, I'm not saying Robles and Davis did great, but they did okay, and you left out Rios, who pitched more than Davis and almost as much as Robles: 25 IP Robles 3.60 ERA/ 1.360 WHIP (3.37 FIP) 24 IP Rios 3.70 ERA/ 1.110 WHIP (4.90 FIP) 17 IP Davis 4.86 ERA/ 1.500 WHIP (3.95 FIP)

Robles did okay, overall. I'm sure the goal is never to finish in last, and I think only 2020 was a year we kind of expected it. My scenarios were meant as end result preferences- not something we plan for, but I do see cycling your "all in" years makes sense.

I hope everyone enjoyed their Thanksgiving. Ours was a unique one. We had planned to go to our daughter's longtime boyfriend's house for dinner. We were set to bring the turkey, stuffing, cranberry & orange relish, pumpkin & pecan pies and ice cream, while their family was to make the ham, sweet potato casserole, spinach casserole, but the boyfriend came down with Covid (mild, so far), so we ended up doing a food exchange and ate at our own homes. It worked out well, but was a bit disappointing. Dec 4-7 Winter Meetings Dec 7 Rule 5 Draft Jan 13 Arb Exchange Deadline

We did add Schwarber, too, and Robles & Davis did pretty well for us. I know we may never win again, in my lifetime, but I'd prefer we plan to go all in every 3-6 years and win more rings than do what the Yanks have done over the last 15 years. I know there are no guarantees, but I'd prefer these 10 year scenarios in this order: 1. Two rings, 3 playoffs w no rings, 3 last place finishes 2. One ring, 5 playoffs w no rings, 2 last place finishes 3. One ring, 4 playoffs w no rings, 1 last place. 4. One ring, 3 playoffs w no rings, 0 last place. 5. No rings, 7 playoffs w no rings, 1 last place. 6. No rings, 6 playoffs w no rings, 0 last place.

The most exciting part of 2022, to me, was watching Schreiber, Bello, Casas, Kelly and yes, even McGuire and German. Wacha, Devers, Bogey, Strahm, Story and a few others provided some excitement, but it seemed like we were doomed for failure way too early in the season for my liking. I'm not proud of it, but I gave up nearly all hope earlier than most, here. It just seemed like a snake bite year, most exemplified by the saga of Sale.

To me, I'm willing to endure last place finishes, if it means we are on our way toward rebuilding to another ring season, but it does suck all those seasons, and it didn't seem like we should have done that poorly in some of those years. The "happy medium" the Cards seem to employ seems like a worthy strategy, as with the Rays, but the Rays have yet to reach the full glory of a ring season. I don't think we'll every become the Dodgers (or the Yanks of old,) but they have done a great job keeping their farm solid, while winning and getting low draft picks and smaller IFA bonus money than anyone else. Right now, the Astros and Braves seem to be doing things the right way. They have good farms, young talent under team control for many years and a solid 26 man roster. The Rays and A's should get credit for putting together many decent teams with meager funding, but comparing us to them is not something I'd do. I'm very happy with our results over the past 2 decades. I hope we get our 5th ring, soon, but if it is 2-3 years away, I'm fine. 5 rings in 22-23 years sure beats what I went through for the 3 decades of being a Sox fan prior to 2004.

What really should be the expectations when you are handed these winter spending budgets with so many holes to fill? 2020: $40M and about 12 roster slots to fill (The $40M did not even come close to replacing lost contracts that included Betts, Price & Porcello) 2021: $40M and about 9 roster slots filled 2022: $50M and about 7 slots filled All this with basically just Houck positively contributing anything from the farm over those 3 seasons. Maybe, expectations were set, too high. It's hard to work miracles within this context. Granted, Bloom has not worked all that many wonders with his FA signings, although what is usually expected when forced to sign 2nd and 3rd tier FAs? He did well with Wacha, Strahm, Hill, Refsnyder, Kelly, Kike '21 version, Renfroe & Ottavino (trade w German for Yankee salary dump) Rule 5 & Waiver additions: Whitlock, Schreiber, Arroyo (Ort Trade additions: Pivetta, McGuire, Hosmer (free salary), German, W Abreu, D Hamilton, E Valdez, Verdugo, Wong, Downs, RHernandez (Seabold, Cordero, and a whole bunch of prospects, including Binelas, Wallace, Koss, Ferguson, Rosier and Park) The Story signing is still too early to judge, but he looks better than Semien & Baez. Not so well with: Paxton, Diekman (although dumping him for McGuire seems to more than make up for the signing), Richards, Perez, Marwin & Andriese (both only $3M) I'm not saying Bloom deserves a "feather" for the overall grade for these moves, but given the circumstances he was handed, he looks to have done a pretty good job building the roster depth and farm to a point where the foundation is to a point where a handful of major additions via free agency or trade and about $90M to spend, this winter, the outlook looks way more positive than it has at anytime since before the 2019 season began. I see an overall plus. We have about 15-18 prospects or recent grads that will likely be given serious looks, this year. The amount of slots on the roster needing serious upgrading is at about 5-7- maybe 8, which is way better than 2020 (about 19-21), 2021 (about 11-13) and 2022 (about 8-10.) The $90M spending budget is more than Bloom has had to spend in any of his other 2 years combined, and that's not counting the $10M he already spent on extending Kike. (He had about $130M winter spending in his 3 years, combined, while losing key salaries like Betts, which to me brings the actual number closer to $100M.) He has about $100M to spend in 2023, counting Kike, so let's give the guy a chance to set his legacy as our GM. This may very well be a sink or swim year for Bloom, but if he does a decent but not great job, and our future continues to grow brighter, as it has every year, I think he may still be the GM in 2024, even if we lose the first round of the WC series. It should be an exciting winter season, for once.

TBR with 8 (1 WC loss)

I remember thinking signing Scherzer or Verlander to shorter deals might be the best idea, since we seemed to be avoiding super large and long deals. Here are the biggest deals, last winter. How many look good, now? $43 x 3 Scherzer $35 x 3 Correa (opted out) $33 x 10 Seager $27 x 6 Freeman $26 x 7 Bryant $25 x 7 Semien $25 x 2 Verlander $24 x 3 Stroman $23 x 6 Story $23 x 6 Baez $23 x 5 R Ray $22 x 5 Gausman $22 x 2 Rodon $21 x 1 Syndergaard $20 x 5 Castellenos $20 x 4 Schwarber $20 x 4 Marte other 4+ Years 15.4 x 5 ERod 15 x 4 C Taylor 14.5 x 4 R Iglesias 14 x 4 Jon Gray 13 x 4 Av Garcia 11 x 4 Matz

Heard the same on Semien & Baez, but Suzuki was the most talked about.

It did not upset most of us.

H a p p y T H A N K S G I V I N G !

That does seem to be a powerful motivator for some.

One amazing statline for DHern is his K/9 rate. His 85 IP sample size is small, but among all MLB with 85+ IP in the history of MLB, only 8 pitchers have a better rate: 15.3 J Hader 14.8 A Diaz 14.7 Chapman 14.5 Dev Williams 14.5 Betances 14.4 Kimbrel 14,3 Karinchak 14.1 N Anderson 14.0 DHern Since he walks so many batters, his K% ranks only 21st (32.3%,) but still that's pretty damn good. It's the 18% BB rate (7.7 BB/9) that he can't seem to overcome.

There are only 6 players on the 40 man roster who were on the 40 man at the end of the 2019 season. Others were in the system but not on the 40. Those 6 are (in order of 40 man seniority) Barnes (added 9/14) Sale (added 12/16) Devers (added 7/17) Brasier (added 7/18) Taylor (added 11/18) DHern (added 11/18) Dalbec was added 11/19, but the other 33 were added after Feb, 2020 (Verdugo). This is fast becoming Bloom's team, although many of the younger players were in the system, when he arrived.

His xFIP of 3.49 was even better than his 2018 3.79 xFIP. His .793 OPS Against was nothing to brag about, but it was better than Crawford and Bello's in 2022. I'd say Ort, Brasier and DHern are all in the same rocking boat. Taylor may be, as well, if he's not over his injury.

But, he throws as hard as DHern, That was the point I was responding to. Again, I'm not defending Brasier. I think he'll be DFA'd, at some point this winter, but he's not some junk ball pitcher.

That's part of it, for sure, but it still puzzles me how these two minor deals are so upsetting to some. Do they really believe these are the only types of moves Bloom will make, this winter?

Yes, it's a broken record, no doubt. Nobody learns anything.